DIY VS Professional Methods
When the hail season strikes again, it is time for you and for all the car owners to look at the affordable ways to protect or repair your car. No doubts, hail can cause serious damage to your car, creating dents and scratches. Thankfully, you can find many different ways to repair hail dents. Most of professional technologies are affordable. Thus, it is impossible to imagine professional hail damage repair without a paintless dent repair. It really helps to recover your car from hail damage. But first, let’s find out how to avoid hail damage and how to fix your car without professional help.
How To Avoid Hail Damage
Hail damage is a terrible nightmare for any car owner. Try to avoid it! Protecting your car from hail you should:
- Park your car in a covered or shade place, particularly in hailstorm season.
- Make sure you park your car in a safe area if you are going to leave for long. It would be great if someone can check your car every day.
How Long Does It Usually Take To Fix Hail Damage?
Repair time depends on damage on your car. For the light or moderate damages, the repairs may take from 1 to 3 days. But for heavy damages, it may take you 2 to 3 weeks as that damages will needs body shop participation, for paint work and panel replacement. Sure enough, professional repair will take less time.
Hail Damage Repair At Home
If you are skilled and good at car repairing, you can try to fix your car on your own.
- Using dry ice
Applying dry ice to the dent is an effective way for fixing hail damage. The huge change in temperature can force the dents to pop out. Everything you need is to move the dry ice around the damaged area to cool the area rapidly. Be careful as dry ice can damage your skin if you don’t wear special gloves when handling it. Fixing hail damage by dry ice can be a cool solution, but sometimes it can’t remove all of the dents. So in this case, you will need to do additional repairs or call to professional hail damage repair.
- Using hot air
You can use a hair dryer to repair your car! Are you surprised? Just aim the hair dryer to the areas you want to fix, and wait until the dents even out. The ideal distance between the hair dryer and the car should be 2-4 inches. Watch out! While using a hair dryer, there should be an interval of 2 minutes. If the car’s paint starts discoloring, you should stop applying heat right away. Use a rubbing compound or wax to revise the paint color.
- Using dent repair kit
For small dents on your car hood, a car dent repair kit may be a simple and inexpensive solution. You can easily find these kits at any local store or a special auto store. Each kit often includes a knockdown tool, a glue gun and many stems for different sized dents. You may be surprised at the way the kit works and the professional result it makes. But this is a solution for small dents only. You shouldn’t use it for deep, large dents, it is better if you take your car to garage.
- Professional help
A professional job at a garage is recommended for large, deep dents or terrible damaged surfaces. What about the fee? The fee for fixing hail damage at garage is quite cheap and fast, but often requires a new paint job. Besides, you can compare professional services on your location and find the cheapest variant. If your vehicle needs professional hail damage repair, bring it in to any service for free auto body repair estimate. You’ll receive the assurance that their technicians understand the frustration of hail damage and possess the precision required to fix it correctly.
Professional Hail Damage Repair
As a rule, professional services regularly use paintless dent repair for hail damage. They often utilize this technique when repairing outer panel strikes or indentations that haven’t stripped paint from the vehicle. When hail hasn’t compromised the exterior panel’s finish, this repair technique can effectively remove surface imperfections without having to repaint your vehicle.
Depending on the severity of the damage, the technician will most likely extract any dents from your vehicle and remove surface imperfections. If the finish is damaged, the technician may still remove the dent to eliminate the need for body fillers before the vehicle is refinished.
That’s so great that modern services use the latest technology and specialized tools for hail damage, ensuring your vehicle is restored to its pre-accident condition.
Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) or Body Filler
So, how do car body services decide which method to use? It really depends on how damaged the vehicle is.
PDR is ideal for removing small dents caused by hail damage. It’s also much cheaper and more eco-friendly compared to body filler, as there are no chemicals involved. Also, PDR is a good option if you’re looking to sell your car in the future, as painting and traditional dent repair methods can cause the value of your car to depreciate. Plus, PDR typically is a much faster process compared to body filler.
Body filler is optimal for repairing heavily dented vehicles. If hail damage has caused the vehicle’s metal to stretch or crack, then it will need to be repaired with body filler. In addition, if hail has damaged your vehicle’s paint, conventional methods will need to be used to repair the damage.
Any repair method must be an excellent choice for repairing hail damage of your car. But you may not know if it is the right option for you if you are not a specialist. If your car has severe damage, you’ll most likely need to have a trusted body shop repair the vehicle with body filler. Be sure to shop around to get an estimate on the cost of reparation.
Don’t forget about GUARANTEE! This professional option often attracts people to use professional help instead of DIY reparation. In the rare instance that you’re not 100 percent satisfied with the quality of your repair, simply return your vehicle to any location and the team of professional specialists will work to make it right.